SupportAward Number UL1RR025755 from the National Center for Research Resources, funded by the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health (OD) and supported by the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research

Presentation Description :
Recent advances have more sharply defined the specific contributions of environmental risk factors for myopia development. The traditional emphasis on reading and other forms of close work has shifted towards a greater understanding of time outdoors being protective against myopia. Rather than simply not being near work, time outdoors appears to have its own independent effects. Interestingly, the effect of time outdoors appears to be more robust in reducing the risk of onset than in slowing the rate of progression once a child becomes myopic. The presentation will review these effects and the questions yet to be answered: why might time outdoors affect the risk of myopia onset and the rate of progression differently, is the benefit of time outdoors from ultraviolet exposure or brighter visible light, is there a role for retinal dopamine release and intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells, and what is the potential for harnessing these effects toward some therapeutic benefit.

This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.